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Is it time to buy 16gb of memory?

Like all of you guys probably already know, memory is as cheap as it's ever been right now. Newegg recently had 16gb of DDR3 for around $62. When I see prices like that I start to get tempted, but like most of you probably as well, I don't need to be spending additional money without a good reason. Then I read an article here stating that memory prices are almost surely going up next year.

My question here is pretty simple. I plan on having my system for about 4 years. Is my current memory of 8gb good enough? I know right now it's more than adequate, and 10 years ago more memory was always better, but it just seems to me that for the last 5 years even 4gb gets you by quite nicely. I just wonder if 16gb of memory is still going to be a waste 4 years down the road.

Re: Is it time to buy 16gb of memory?

If you don't need to be spending money without good reason, what was the actual concern(s) if any for you to upgrade to 16 GB other than there may be a price hike next year? Let's say that even if it wasn't, what do you do with your rig that requires the upgrade?

If you say your 8 GB is more than adequate for your needs, then stick with it.

Re: Is it time to buy 16gb of memory?

I upgraded from 8GB to 16GB explicitly because it was just too darn cheap to pass up. I really have noticed no differences in games or anything for that matter. IMHO 8GB is plenty unless you have apps like VM ware that like to chew it up. I think the max I've seen BF3 eat up was about 3GB. The only downside I can think of is for people with limited SSD boot drive space. Remember that windoze likes to match the size of the installed ram for the pagefile. If you are booting from a 64GB SSD either:

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Re: Is it time to buy 16gb of memory?

I decided to go for it. For $64 I just couldn't pass up 16gb of memory. Knowing that this system will go to my wife in 4-5 years, having more than enough memory is justified, especially knowing that it will probably cost triple what I paid for it years down the road.

Re: Is it time to buy 16gb of memory?

Be wary of hibernation file and page file if using an SSD with 16GB or more, Windows will automatically assign about 16GB for each totalling more than 30GB. However, the hibernation file and page file on the SSD boot drive can be resized in the case of the page file and removed in the case of the hibernation file.

So depending on your usage, if your like me and multi task a lot and keep lots of stuff open at the same time, then yes 16gb definitely.

Keep in mind that the latest Z77 panther point motherboards and ivy intel cpu support up to 32gb of ddr3.

However i think that 16gb should be sufficient for even hardcore users like me.

DDR3 ram is on the cheap, as prices are 20% compared to the prices from a few years ago. So now is a good time to buy.

However just be aware regarding ram developments, that DDR4 is over the horizon, as micron just made the first ddr4, and jedec is playing catch up :X so you can expect ddr4 to hit end of 2012 or in 2013 :X

ram is so cheap now that the vendors are offering kits of 16gb and even 32gb ....